Moments in Grace

Every December it happens.     This monumental, earth shattering strain that is the Christmas season in America.   The activities multiply, the rushing intensifies, the pressure of gifts to buy and events to attend, decorations to put up and food to cook, family to visit, and houses to clean, and as a woman, as a mother, the person who has to plan and orchrestrate the Christmas chaos for a family (in my case, a family with seven children) it can almost put you over the edge.   But as Christians somehow we know that this is wrong.   We know that Christmas is intended to be something other than this stress-inducing, materialistic, month long period of psychosis. This season that was meant to bring us the deepest peace, often brings us the most stress. This time that was meant to shine so much love in our hearts often makes us the most angry. These days that were meant to fill us with so much joy so often bring us pain. Ask me how I kno...

It happened the day before Thanksgiving.     The day my world spun me a little farther off course, sent my faith flying like some planet hurling into the cosmos, sheathed in blackness. I should have been thankful.   I wasn’t very.   I was rocked, spinning, without a compass. Maybe you’ve been there? It was the day the pregnancy test came back positive, announcing the impending arrival of baby number seven into our family and all I could see ahead was suffering. I don’t have easy pregnancies.   They come with pain, months of vomiting and nausea, sometimes heart problems, sometimes high blood pressure, exhaustion, and the last time, I almost died. With my fourth baby I had to wear a heart monitor because my heart just wouldn’t keep up on me.   It raced out of control.   I couldn’t breathe and eat at the same time without difficulty.   I was in a constant state of exhaustion.   Baby number five ...